Watch out, watch out! There’s fake flash about!

The expression “Caveat Emptor” (Latin for: Buyer Beware) has always rung true throughout the annals of history, and no less so than in this modern day and age, where everyone is trying to make a quick buck…Seldom caring about how far they go and who they burn on the way.
Today, my weblog concentrates on the blight of Fake flash (USB) media, and how many computer users might unwittingly be relying on storage that could fail them at any time without warning.

Since the earliest days of home computing, many have relied on portable media to store and transfer files from one place to another. From the late 70’s with it’s eight-inch floppies, we’ve seen the floppy disk shrink in size and grow in capacity, the advent of the portable hard-drive, the coming of memory cards, and the introduction of the USB flash drive.
Many people rely on USB drives to store very valuable data; Be it work documents, family photos or home videos. Indeed, the convenience of the flash drive coupled with it’s solid-state nature and excellent resistance to damage have near enough made it the default choice for home users wishing to store and keep their most important memories close to hand for years to come.

Sadly, the popularity of USB media – And the ease with which it may be maliciously configured – Has led to it becoming an target for counterfeiters en-masse, and fake flash drives are all too easy to come by. Those who search eBay, markets or car-boot sales for USB media need to be particularly wary, as that is where the majority of such fake drives are offered up for sale.

So what exactly is wrong with using a fake pen drive? There are at least two major reasons (Detailed below) against using faked media, and probabally a whole host of other niggling matters besides:

1. Counterfeited/hacked capacity:
   A flash drive – Like all types of computer storage – Has a drive information section, inside which data about the drive and it’s capabilities (Such as capacity, volume label, type etc.) is stored. Like any part of a normal disk, the data in this area can be read, written and changed by anyone with knowlege of low-level drive access (A very easy thing to learn) and it is this area which counterfeiters change to make the drive look bigger than it really is.
   In short: A simple change to the data in this area is enough to make an 8Mb pen drive look like a 256Gb (Or whatever capacity) drive to any operating system that accesses it.

   Of course, the actual flash chip on the pen drive (Where the data is stored) only has the capacity for which it was originally designed, and this capacity cannot be changed. Even though Windows might say that a hacked key can store 128Gb of data on it (And Windows will even format the drive to it’s “full” capacity without raising errors) any attempt to write past the physical limit of the flash chip would result in that data being lost, with writes to any sector address above physical capacity simply being directed to the final sector over and over again.
   So…You might feel really chuffed that you bought a fully “working” 128Gb pen drive off of eBay for only twenty quid, but chances are what you really bought is a cheap, hacked flash drive with only 1-4Gb of real storage on it, housed in a counterfeit casing! 😮

2. Poor quality, substandard flash memory:
   The majority of counterfeit flash drives come from the Far East, where labour and materials are cheaply available and a lot of things are knocked together in a very slap-dash fashion. With many genuine, big-brand media manufacturers locating their facilities in the far east to cut down on production costs – And the apparent ease with which counterfeiters manage to obtain genuine looking parts (Often dug out of the rejects bin) – The availability of genuine casings and packaging for counterfeit media is surprisingly astronomical.
   Although a typical counterfeit drive might appear to store data just as well as the leading brand at first, the harsh reality of counterfeit products – Often containing NAND flash that is faulty, low quality, or even both – Will begin to show itself over time. Although a properly made pen-drive will hold data for about ten years after writing, counterfeit products will hold data for a much shorter time – As little as three months in the most extreme of cases! 😮

   It’s a good idea to keep multiple copies of valuable data stored safely on different types of media, but sadly many people opt for a single CD/DVD-R or flash key for “safe” data storage. Just imagine, however, the horror of a widow wishing to retrieve photos and video of her deceased and much missed husband, loading the pen drive on which she’d stored all of her precious memories of him…Only to find that 70% of the data she thought was on there (And is no longer available from any other source) had mysteriously vanished or otherwise become inaccessible to her. 😦
   Many people faced with that example might well think it’s OK, it’ll never happen to me…But the reality is that poor quality flash can degrade and destroy data at any time without warning. Therefore it goes without saying that valuable data – The data that you want/need to keep forever – Should only be stored on a decent quality drive. Don’t bother with the “cheap” drives on eBay; When it comes to valuable data, the higher prices in PC World and other high-street retailers are well worth it to ensure that you’re getting the real deal. 🙂

I have to confess that even I – With my careful eye and extensive knowlege in computing – Have been fooled by the current wave of fake flash storage that’s been doing the rounds recently. Two 16Gb MP3 players that I recently acquired turned out to be much smaller than stated (They had in fact only 1Gb of storage each!) and given that they already have 20% of dead disk area according to Windows Scandisk, I’m already thanking the Gods that I never tried storing anything important on them! 😮

Anyhow…I do apologise for the length of my ramble this night, and hope that this weblog proves useful to anyone searching out consumer and technical info on the so-called “cheap” pen drives that are now readily available. 🙂
For more information on this subject, the following excellent weblogs come highly recommended:

• Nandinium’s weblog about fake USB keys – With a layman’s description of counterfeit USB media, and why it’s a bad thing.
• Fighting flash fraud on Ebay – A group dedicated to protecting consumers from counterfeit media.
• Bloggy Bloggy category: Fake USB keys – Contains more technical info on fake USB media, plus tools and advice for resetting a hacked flash drive to show it’s correct data storage capacity.

Farewell for now, and remember: Caveat Emptor ex eBayis!
+++ DieselDragon +++